Prepare for Trouble!

 “And make it double” Team Rocket. Yes. A Pokémon quote. I don’t apologize, I have no shame. Is two always better than one? Two scoops of ice cream? Better. Two broken fingers? Worse. Two infectious microbes? Better? But for whom? Not humans that’s for sure. Enter Wolbachia and mosquitoes (or Wuchereria bancrofti also). Wolbachia is an intracellular parasite that does some awesome work for its hosts, namely the above mentioned mosquito and parasite (a cause of elephantiasis).

For mosquitoes it offers higher levels of resistance to pesticides. Sounds awesome right? In Minnesota our state bird is the majestic mosquito, and I can promise you hell is filled with nothing but the little bastards. Hellfire ain’t got nothing on mosquitoes. The little flying demons also become more resistant to certain RNA viruses like West Nile, norovirus, and chikungunya virus. Which is actually helpful. An article in PLOS 2008 found that mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia had a 2-3 times lower chance of transmitting said viruses to other mammals. Say thank you to Mr and Mrs Wolbachia now. 

On one hand, maybe less of these mosquito borne illnesses but more mosquito bites. They carry a lot more than just the above mentioned viruses so maybe hold your thanks. You’ll only get malaria, not West Nile virus, yay….

On that happy note, what about the filarial nematode credited with elephantiasis? Like me and pancakes, meatheads and gyms, or mosh pits and metal, the two are intertwined and dependent on each other  Wolbachia provides a source of several necessary components of life to said nematodes like heme and riboflavin to name two. The Wuchereria bancrofti provides amino acids in return to the bacteria. I wonder what the exchange rate is? Do they charge interest? Do they have repo men?

 It is thought that if the two organisms evolved together, if one produced an essential molecule to the other, the one to receive that molecule could’ve lost the ability to make it in house. Makes sense to me, I don’t know what but I’m sure there is a trade off between the ability to produce heme and some other attribute of the parasite, and vice versa for the bacteria. If you ask me about the evolution and diversification of metal genres I could give you a full lecture, but evolution? I’ll just give you the resources cause I don’t understand it all.

Ok. Enough of my rambling, but I think this is super cool. My Medical Laboratory Scientist fiancé (should be writing this, I really am marrying up the intelligence ladder) and I were going to get these tattooed on our wrists. But avocados are much more readily understood. We still might get our favorite microbes tattooed at some point. Get a tramp stamp of blastomycosis? Maybe I will.

References 

Host microbiota can facilitate pathogen infection from PLOS Pathogens by Stevens, Bates, & King in May 2021. 

Image of Wolbachia from the World Mosquito Program.

The Native Wolbachia Endosymbionts of Drosophila melanogaster and Culex quinquefasciatus Increase Host Resistance to West Nile Virus Infection by Glaser & Meal in PLoS One in 2010. 

The Wolbachia Genome of Brugia malayi: Endosymbiont Evolution within a Human Pathogenic Nematode from PLoS Biology by Foster et al. in April 2005. 

Wolbachia and Virus Protection in Insects from Science by Hedges et al. in October 2008.